DUCKETT MOVES INTO PCA MVP RANKINGS TOP FIVE

Northamptonshire batsman Ben Duckett has moved back into the top 10 in the Professional Cricketers’ Most Valuable Player Rankings.

The 21 year-old left hander has been in prolific form all season, starting with a career-best 282 not out in the Specsavers County Championship opener against Sussex in April.

He followed up with 189 against Essex last month and added 72 more against Sussex at Arundel last week which secured him 18 MVP points.

Duckett has also claimed 31 MVP points in the NatWest T20 Blast and 48 in the Royal London One Day Cup where he made 98 against Lancashire and 113 against Yorkshire, where he contributed 39 per cent of Northamptonshire’s total.

Duckett is currently fifth in the overall PCA MVP, just a point behind Surrey’s former Sri Lanka batsman Kumar Sangakkara, and 16th in the championship rankings.

The PCA MVP was introduced in 2007 and is designed by the players to find the cricketers who really win matches by combining all aspects of a player’s performance to give a ranking in relation to his peers.

The revised MVP formula gives full credit to those players whose performances improve their team’s chances of winning. Points are accrued for all runs scored and wickets taken; these are then adjusted within the context of the match to take into account strike rates and economy rates.

Runs gain more points if they are scored quickly or in low-scoring contests. Top order wickets taken at the start of the innings are judged more valuable than those that fall later, and bowlers who bowl their overs cheaply (in the context of the match) are given due reward for doing so.

The weightings in the revised formula have been scaled so as to provide continuity with previous seasons, ensuring that the value of an MVP point this year is equivalent to those allocated under previous formulae.